by Manuel Puig in a version by José Rivera and Allan Baker
seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 24 April 2018
Laurie Sansom directs Samuel Barnett as Molina and Declan Bennett as Valentin, with Grace Cooke-Gam as the warder and nurse, in this, a second dramatic adaptation of Manuel Puig's celebrated novel of 1976 set in an Argentinian prison (also the subject of a film in 1985). An earlier version of the play was staged in London in 1985 and revived at the Donmar Warehouse in 2007.
This new version is more streamlined, lasting a hundred minutes without a break. It thus increases the claustrophobic nature of the setting, enhanced by the configuration of the Menier stage and auditorium, with designer Jon Bausor making full use of its concrete walls and pillars, and surrounding the acting space with earth.
The story is, of course, a product of its time and place; the position of a gay man in the socially macho and politically repressive Argentina of the 1980s is anything but secure or happy. Molina is a fantasist, holding his terrors at bay by indulgent retellings of noir films from a previous generation in which the sympathetic heroine is placed under enormous stress but is nonetheless an object of desire (for straight men) or emulation (for him). Valentin, devoted to the political struggle, initially has no sympathy for Molina who seems to him to be a failure on all counts. During the course of the play a wary intimacy develops between the two men, placing Molina in the intolerable position of spying on a man with whom he is falling in love.
Samuel Barnett's performance is sensitive and totally involving; he is excellent at showing Molina's moods and the increasing stress of his position. Declan Bennett is perhaps less successful in conveying the more austere character of Valentin, and the ambivalence of their developing involvement with one another suffers from a certain lack of engagement between the two actors. This is a pity, because it detracts from the power of the piece. The end of the play, in which Valentin is lost in a morphine-induced dream of escape, is also something of a puzzle - is he dreaming himself into death, or is this only a temporary reprieve from yet more bouts of torture? The information the audience receives about Molina's fate is somewhat compromised by this lack of clarity.
The story is, of course, a product of its time and place; the position of a gay man in the socially macho and politically repressive Argentina of the 1980s is anything but secure or happy. Molina is a fantasist, holding his terrors at bay by indulgent retellings of noir films from a previous generation in which the sympathetic heroine is placed under enormous stress but is nonetheless an object of desire (for straight men) or emulation (for him). Valentin, devoted to the political struggle, initially has no sympathy for Molina who seems to him to be a failure on all counts. During the course of the play a wary intimacy develops between the two men, placing Molina in the intolerable position of spying on a man with whom he is falling in love.
Samuel Barnett's performance is sensitive and totally involving; he is excellent at showing Molina's moods and the increasing stress of his position. Declan Bennett is perhaps less successful in conveying the more austere character of Valentin, and the ambivalence of their developing involvement with one another suffers from a certain lack of engagement between the two actors. This is a pity, because it detracts from the power of the piece. The end of the play, in which Valentin is lost in a morphine-induced dream of escape, is also something of a puzzle - is he dreaming himself into death, or is this only a temporary reprieve from yet more bouts of torture? The information the audience receives about Molina's fate is somewhat compromised by this lack of clarity.
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